“Yes,” agreed his sister. “Let’s go for a ride over there now, and see how long it will be before they’re ripe.”
This was a day or so after Ted had ridden the calf.
“Me come!” cried Trouble, as he saw his brother and sister getting Nicknack ready for their drive.
“Oh, yes, I s’pose you’ll have to come, Trouble!” replied Jan. “Come along!”
They rode down the shady highway in the goat wagon, listening to the birds, watching the bees and butterflies flutter from flower to flower, and thinking how lovely it was to spend a vacation at Cherry Farm. The Curlytops had forgotten, for the time, about the troubles and worries of Grandpa Martin.
All at once, as they drove the goat wagon around a turn in the road, the children saw, just in front of them, a funny wagon, painted red, and drawn by a white horse. On the back step of the wagon, which looked a little like those driven by gypsies, stood a very fat man. He was so fat that it is a wonder the wagon did not tip up, horse and all, from his weight on the back step. But perhaps it had extra heavy front wheels to hold that end down to the ground.
“Oh, ho! Oh, ho!” cried the fat man in a jolly voice. “Oh, ho! What have we here? Gay travelers like myself! Oh, lollypops and ice-cream sandwiches! That’s the rig for me! I love a goat! I must have a goat! I will buy yours. I’ll give you a thousand gumdrops for him. Oh, ho! Sell me your goat!”
And while the surprised Curlytop children, with Jan holding Trouble in her lap, stopped their goat, and looked at the funny fat man in his funny red wagon, he looked at them and laughed until his face was as wrinkled as a toy circus balloon when the wind hisses out of it. And then the fat man cried again:
“Oh, ho! I love a goat! I will give you my white horse and red wagon for your goat and a million gumdrops besides. Come, let us trade. Are you simple Simons with a penny, or, indeed, have you any? Oh, ho! I will sing!”
And then he began to sing: